Deadlines

I've missed several in the last week.

First, my Form 2 reports. Due Wednesday, 12:30pm. I was only a few hours late in the beginning but then thought I could do it at home with the school's new, fancy web-based report system... but no. And then the internet was down the next day at school (which was handy because it meant that the rest of the deadlines following my missed one could not be kept, so I had a bit of undeserved extra time).

On Friday my Form 3 reports were due, 12:30pm. By that stage I was exhausted from marking, overwhelmed at the thought of keeping my deadlines, and mad at the authorities for scheduling a Literature essay-based exam on the last day of exams and expecting all 100+ scripts to be marked in 48 hours and reports based on those marks in the next morning. So that fact is, I could probably have stayed late into Friday afternoon and finished and only been a few hours late... but I didn't. I went home. (And got them in first thing Monday before anyone was the wiser).

Okay, so its not a good habit to miss deadlines, I realise that, and in the past I've always been an almost ridiculous stickler for the rules, but the fact that I was so relaxed about missing these school ones (the first was sort of not my fault, or at least less my fault than the second which was totally a choice and my fault) shows something quite cool. I'm comfortable at W. I feel confident in my position here, so much that I realise that first, missing deadlines occasionally is probably not the end of the world and second, if there are near world-ending ramifications such as being shouted or frowned in next week's staff meeting... I probably will survive.

So missing deadlines at school, not a good thing, but being comfortable and confident in a place, definitely a good thing.

And a worrying thought that I'm not going to deal much on: this blog post is two days late and I feel more guiltly about that than missing my report deadlines.

PAIN: Invigilation

Along with exams comes invigilation. Last year, I started teaching right before Cambridge exams began in November. I listened as teachers bemoaned the duty of invigilating these exams with, I thought, over-exaggerated consternation and drama. Honestly, all you’re doing is supervising a bunch of girls while they write an exam. How terrible could that be? Well, having been inducted into my first round of public exam invigilating and well into my second, let me tell, it can be pretty darn terrible.

Cambridge is, as I imagine many other examining boards are, very strict on how invigilation must be done. An invigilator may not do anything else other than invigilate. This consists of walking (you are not really meant to stop moving) around the room watching attentively for cheating students (and supplying extra paper, tissue paper, string to tie papers together, picking up dropped writing utensils). Not difficult. No. But do you know how unbelievably boring walking around watching people write, racing other teachers to get to the raised hand, with nothing to do, for anywhere from 40 to 120 minutes, is? Well, let me enlighten you: it is awfully painful. You scoff? Believe it. I never knew doing nothing could be so painful (I knew there was a reason I avoided all those "Silent Retreats" at Calvin!).

So, in an effort to survive the eternity of walking in a daze around the room (who expects us to see cheaters after an exhausting hour of nothingness?) like zombies, you come up with some interesting ideas.

String braiding with the little pieces of string for tying papers together
Origami stars – made with thin strips of smuggled in paper
Statistics – work out what percentage of Maths candidates have two or more calculators
Races – first invigilator to find a certain number or word
Bets – with fellow zombie guess which month has more candidates born in it, count them up (based on students’ statement of entries on their desks) and see who wins
String hide and seek (our latest favourite) – spend the time hiding little bits of string (very surreptitiously) around the room, next invigilator has to find them

Jess, a friend and fellow zombie-walker, created a Facebook support group called “People Against Invigilation: PAIN”.

Ideas of ways to fill spaces of nothingness welcome.

Six-word memoirs

Someone once challenged Hemmingway to write a short story in six words. So he did:
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”

In 2006 Smith magazine challenged their readers to write their own six-word memoirs.

In October I challenged my L6s (17 year olds) to write their own six-word memoirs along with the back story. The back stories stayed private, I was the only one to read them, but the six words were all put into a powerpoint for our final lesson. The memoirs they wrote ranged from funny to thoughtful to heart-breaking. It is amazing how much you can put into six words and I feel privileged that they shared these stories with me – some deeply personal. Some of the things that they bring with them and have to go home to, that they hide behind hard work and good-natured smiles, that they have to cope with and still be expected to hand in homework and study for exams, are unbelievable.

Here are some:

“Experiences,” names given to our mistakes. --Jo
Newspaper Classifieds – Urgently needed: Braille Instructor --Ru
Can’t love what you didn’t have… --Sa
Love is patient. Love is kind. --De
Pink cozzies don’t make it better. --Se
High School Musical is a movie. --Ki
Blow out your candle – never mind… --Ch
Natural Selection: Survival of the fittest. --Pr
A little firefly glowing in darkness. --Ru
I swim because I want to. --Ni
Muffins, Best Friend and Worst Enemy. --Sh
Laugh out loud, let it rip. --Ta
Life. What it has to offer. --Ku
Friends all made it, I didn’t. --Ru
Best Friends Forever. Forever… CUT SHORT! --Me
My teacher made me do this. --Ch
Dearest God: Bring Daddy Back… Please! --Li
Darkness isn’t what I’m afraid of. --Ca
Wanted: That elusive place called home. --Miss Bell

Being a Lady

It is not ladylike to walk and eat or drink at the same time. You learn something new every day. W* is all about molding young ladies of excellence. Or something like that. It’s all a bit vague. But becoming a lady is definitely part of the goal. Last week they were lectured about acting like ladies (my Form 2s – 14 year olds – responded by greeting me for our after lunch lesson as “Lady Bell”, I think they missed the point). In our staff meeting we were reminded to make sure girls do not walk and eat at the same time because “ladies do not do that.” Ladies walk demurely, in silence, from lesson to lesson, not eating.

The same day, in the car on the way home, Angela told me how two girls at her co-ed school down the road almost got into a physical fight—“so unladylike!” she exclaimed with wrinkled nose.
“Why is it unladylike? Why can’t girls fight but boys can?”
I’d like to report that she realised the incongruence of this social more, and we had a mind shaping conversation… but we didn’t.

But really, this lady business distresses me a bit. What is the point? Who decides on what is ladylike and what is not? And why is being ladylike so inconvenient to the lady? And the big one: why can men eat and walk at the same time but women – sorry, ladies – can’t? Delicate constitutions, no doubt. Goodness, it feels like the 1870s sometimes (not that I have a firm grasp of what that decade was like). This lady image is an appealing one to push young girls towards, but what really are we pushing them into? And, why?

Well, fortunately, it’s too late for me to be molded a lady. So I walk down the corridor, and I grab the tea biscuit on my way out of school at 3pm and munch on it as I walk to the car. And I whistle; because I love to whistle. And that's definitely not ladylike.

*I have decided not to refer to my school by name anymore. So from now on it will be referred to as “W” – a random letter that has no connection at all.